My Backyard

Montana Rep-Diaries of Adam and Eve

I'm on the arts council for Gardiner. It's mostly fun and I really enjoy being able to bring some great acts into our small town but sometimes it seems like a LONG process. Especially during board meetings. We had our first performance this past Heidi was point person for the Montana Repertory Theatre. They were scheduled to perform Mark Twain's "The Diaries of Adam and Eve." The play is hilarious by the way. Absolutely wonderful. This group is always a joy to work with and the scenery was absolutely perfect. In an effort to bring more people in, Heidi not only advertised in the local newsletter, she hung posters and even threw a pre-show shindig. It was really fun, lots of food, lots of people, and a gorgeous sunset. Montana is so great for those.
After the show, we had a cake walk. It was a grand success and enjoyed by all. Last year we had attempted the musical chairs version (walk around in a circle, eliminate one chair and then one person each time). This year, we did the put-the-numbers-on-a-chair-and-then-pick-the-number-from-a-hat-for-people-to-win version. I was in charge of that part. I'm bossy so it works. We made enough money to cover our incidental expenses. Yay!
The night before, Allie and I made/finished our cakes over at Carrie's house while Heidi finished up her appetizers. My cake is on the left, Allie models her cake on the right. Heidi was finishing up her crab (crack) dip and putting it on fancy bread with lettuce. It was SO GOOD. She also made up her fancy beverages.
At the same time, we were watching Trailer Park Boys. If you've never seen this show, you really, really need to get it from Netflix. Canadians are funny, who knew?
You know who else is funny? Americans. Just check out the ants on a log and decorations that Allie and Heidi cooked up.

Working during the Winter

I am blessed enough to be able to walk to work. I'm only about 1/4 to 1/2 mile from work (never clocked it, suspect it is about half way between the two, it takes about 6 minutes to walk.) Here are a couple of pictures both from my walk and from my building. Ain't Montana wonderful?

Elk in the morning

Pretty mountain

My building

On the way home

Just to remind myself that Montana

This ain't no reg'lar corn maze

So, I've been saying for YEARS that I've wanted to go to a corn maze. Well, there's not a lot of corn in south-central Montana so I kind of figured it was a pipe dream. Then, my friend Heidi found a haybale maze that they were setting up in Bozeman. That's only 80 miles away. So, eight of us made the perilous journey and went through the maze. It was TOTALLY AWESOME!

Getting instructions. We not only had to find our way in and out, we also had to find four check points along the way. Allie and I found the first flag! Happy, happy, joy, joy.

Going through the maze
I made it out!

Renters

So, I left a couple of slightly annoyed messages on Facebook about this, but my renters left on September the 17th. Thank god they left early. They left a pigsty. Seriously disgusting. Thank God my parents came and helped me out. I had somebody come in and clean the carpets. Somebody also did the walls. But I still needed to do the trim which took two coats and was all over the apartment. LOOOONNNGG Time. I figured it would take my parents and I a day to finish up everything that needed to be done. I was really, really wrong. I took two days off of work to help out and they were still working on Thursday and Friday. I REALLY lucked out in the parental department. Brand new flooring in the bathroom (it had been a rug), new toilet seat, new rug and countertop in the back room and more.

The Stove Before

The Stove After (and it's not just the flash)

The walls and trim before
Walls and Trim after (And the floor stains are gone)

Ceiling stains have been Killzed and painted

Sink Before

Sink After (all peas are gone and the sink is shiny)
My mom somehow managed to not only rip all of those nasty flowers off, she got the tub sparkling as well.

Dear God in Heaven I hope I never have to go through that again. Alicia, I hope you get a permanent job and live below me forever.

The Debates

What are we discussing while what may be the election-deciding debate is on television? Who is the sexiest man on a dollar bill. Alicia voted for Hamilton but I have to argue for Jefferson. Both were probably sleeping with anything that moved but they sure are pretty.

Where the heck've I been?

Exciting times. Two Fridays ago Jackie and I gave a presentation at the Western Pacific chapter of American Association of Law Libraries. I was super nervous. Especially since Jackie's daughter got married the weekend before so she was gone and I had to deal with a ridiculous number of people who didn't know that fall is supposed to be a shoulder season. Shoulder season=fewer people. At least, it's supposed to. But whatever. Even though we had to essentially pull ourselves together in a week, we kicked some serious butt. I went to the sessions both Friday and Saturday. Didn't learn very many new things but a lot of the ideas were definitely re-energizing. Just notice the slightly maniacal look on my face at the end of the conference.
It was great 'cause I got to go up to Bozeman and spend time with mon frer. Oh yeah. By the time I got there Friday night, my energy levels had subsided, a LOT. After driving up to Bozeman at 7, then waiting for a ridiculously long time to give my speech and then the rush of doing the speech and then doing it so well... I was zonked. But it was his friend Josh's birthday so there were a bunch of people that came over. It was fun but I just wanted to sleep. I had the conference the next day and my parents were coming in that night. More on their visit later.